Acer Swift 3 SF314-44 14 Inch Laptop - (AMD Ryzen 7 5825U, 16GB, 512GB SSD, Full HD Display, Windows 11, Silver)

Product Information

Getting the bottom off the Swift 3 is easy enough but pretty pointless. All you can do is switch out the Intel AX201 wireless card and the Micron 2280 SSD. While I’m on the subject, the AX201 gives you full Wi-Fi 6 connectivity as well as Bluetooth 5.0, while the Gen 4 512GB SSD recorded perfectly decent (for the price) sequential read and write speeds of 2,026MB/sec and 1,085MB/sec respectively.

We can brush the worries aside, though, as our own use of the Acer Swift 3 has put the battery to test in real life, and it holds up quite well. Thanks to the anti-glare display, it’s easy to keep running the Acer Swift 3 without needing to crank the brightness to 100% at all times, helping conserve battery some. And, even spending a whole day writing, editing, reviewing, and YouTubing on Chrome with way too many tabs open, the laptop doesn’t leave us looking for a power outlet at midday. Software and featuresAs a mid-range laptop, the Acer Swift 3 isn’t going to set the world alight when it comes to its spec sheet, yet nevertheless provides a great all-round experience for productivity. Like all Intel’s H-series 13th Gen processors it has some legs on it and is capable of giving modern laptops a level of performance that would have been unthinkable just two years ago. The Acer Swift 3 will absolutely wow you with how long it lasts on a single charge. While continuously browsing the web at 150 nits of brightness, the Swift 3 lasted 11 hours and 9 minutes. It will definitely last you your whole work day and then some. It also offers fast charging, so for 30 minutes of charge you can get 4 hours of use. It’s a shame about the display because the Ryzen 7-based Swift 3 comfortably outperforms its Intel Core i7-1065G7 rival on all other fronts and with both laptops supported 8GB RAM that’s no mean feat. Note that the RAM is soldered in and there are no free slots for expansion but you shouldn’t need more on a machine of this specification. There aren’t a lot of extras to get excited about with the Acer Swift 3 (2021). Pretty much the only way it goes beyond the basics is with a thin fingerprint scanner that we get to work about one in ten times we use it — not so unusual in our experience with laptop fingerprint scanners. The webcam is as basic as they come as well.

While it may not be the most luxurious Windows 10 ultraportable on the market, it’s certainly one of the most keenly priced. The question is, can you spend less and do even better? The Swift 3 brings all-day battery life and more to the plate. This means you will be able to run around all day and not worry about having to search for an outlet. When we ran the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the Acer Swift 3 lasted for 14 hours and 48 minutes, which crushed the ultraportable average (12:45). The HP Envy x360 came in second with a runtime of 11 hours and 23 minutes. The MacBook Air finished third (9:31) and the Surface Pro 7+ is, again, in last place (8:49). Acer Swift 3 heat The speaker system can’t quite match the display for quality, though, despite carrying DTS certification. To start with there’s not a lot of volume on offer: at 1m distance, I measured an average of 71dB from a pink noise source and 72dB with peaks of 79dB from a music source. That’s pretty average. There’s not much in the way of bass, either, although the definition is good and there’s no break-up even at maximum volume. In day-to-day use, both models feel snappy in use. They power on rapidly, boot up games without issue and seem comfortable running dozens of Chrome tabs at once. However, the Intel review unit did let out a persistent humming noise, even when the CPU wasn’t being taxed that heavily. As what may have been expected, the color production wasn’t great for the Acer Swift 3. According to our colorimeter, the Acer Swift 3 produced 62% of the sRGB color gamut, falling short of the Intel Swift 3’s 66%, and falling below the HP Envy 13’s 99%. It doesn’t even come close to the category average of 91%. Acer Swift 3 (AMD) review: Keyboard and touchpadThe Micron 1TB SSD that shipped with my review machine had fast sequential write speeds, too, at 3,127MB/sec while the sequential read speed of 3,110MB/sec was only meaningfully beaten by the Samsung Galaxy Book 3. There’s no doubt that the Swift 3 is a smart-looking laptop, with an all-silver outer shell helping to provide some business-class looks. It’s also nicely built and doesn’t feel cheap in the slightest, being comprised of some high-quality metal and plastics with a smooth finish.